Pain for objectivists: The case of matters of mere taste

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 8 (4):437 - 457 (2005)
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Abstract

Can we adequately account for our reasons of mere taste without holding that our desires ground such reasons? Recently, Scanlon and Parfit have argued that we can, pointing to pleasure and pain as the grounds of such reasons. In this paper I take issue with each of their accounts. I conclude that we do not yet have a plausible rival to a desire-based understanding of the grounds of such reasons.

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David Sobel
Syracuse University

Citations of this work

The distinctive feeling theory of pleasure.Ben Bramble - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 162 (2):201-217.
How to Unify Theories of Sensory Pleasure: An Adverbialist Proposal.Murat Aydede - 2014 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 5 (1):119-133.
Attitudinal and Phenomenological Theories of Pleasure.Eden Lin - 2020 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 100 (3):510-524.

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References found in this work

Morals by agreement.David P. Gauthier - 1986 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Moral thinking: its levels, method, and point.R. M. Hare (ed.) - 1981 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
A theory of the good and the right.Richard B. Brandt - 1998 - Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
Impartial reason.Stephen L. Darwall - 1983 - Ithaca N.Y.: Cornell University Press.

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